THE STORY OF CHINATOWN

The story of Chinatown is the story of a neighborhood; an American neighborhood,
an old neighborhood, an immigrant neighborhood, where the old country
still lives inside the new one. The past and the present are inseparably
woven together in this neighborhood defined by Broadway, California, Kearny
and Powell streets.

In the mid-1840's, following defeat by Britain in the first Opium War,
a series of natural catastrophes occurred across China resulting in famine,
peasant uprisings and rebellions. Understandably, when the news of gold
and opportunity in far away Gum San, (Golden Mountain- the Chinese name
for America) reached China, many Chinese seized the opportunity to seek
their fortune.

The Chinese were met with ambiguous feelings by Californians. In 1850,
San Francisco Mayor John W. Geary invited the "China Boys" to a ceremony
to acknowledge their work ethic. However, as the American economy weakened,
the Chinese labor force became a threat to mainstream society. Racial
discrimination and repressive legislation drove the Chinese from the gold
mines to the sanctuary of the neighborhood that became known as Chinatown.
The only ethnic group in the history of the United States to have been
specifically denied entrance into the country, the Chinese were prohibited
by law to testify in court, to own property, to vote, to have families
join them, to marry non-Chinese, and to work in institutional agencies.

The success and survival of Chinatown depended a great deal on the family
and district benevolent associations which served as political and social
support systems to newcomers. The members strove to meet the basic needs
of the community, and represented a united voice in the fight against
discriminatory legislation process.

"CHINATOWN" offers a revealing look at how a group of people
bound geographically, culturally, linguistically and economically during
hostile times has flourished to become a vibrant, courageous and proud
community for Chinese Americans and greater San Francisco, referred to
as Dai Fao (Big City) in Chinese.

FROM MOTHER LODE AND RAILROAD TO A NEW ECONOMY

Depression followed the completion of the railroad. In 1869 twenty thousand
Chinese were suddenly out of work. Many traditional means of wage earning
were inaccessible to the Chinese.

Their farm laboring skills produced superior varieties of rice, oranges,
apples, cherries and peaches. The Chinese filled the need for domestic
services in white homes and developed laundry businesses. They became
successfully involved in the restaurant business, fishing and shrimping
industries, and leather goods manufacturing. As soon as their new businesses
flourished, they were targeted as unwelcome competition to the struggling
economy of San Francisco.

The Burlingame Treaty of 1869 encouraged the Chinese to emigrate to
the United States in greater numbers. Reacting to the America's fear of
the "yellow peril," in 1877 Denis Kearney organized the Workingman's Party
with the rallying cry, "The Chinese Must Go!" which led to the looting
and burning of many Chinese businesses.

More than thirty anti-Chinese legislations were enacted during the l870's
at both the state and local levels. (See legislation section) The result
of this codified racism was to exclude Chinese from many occupations and
to deprive them of full participation in a society they had helped to
build. Culmination of this discriminatory legislation resulted in the
Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, l882. This act suspended the immigration
of Chinese laborers for ten years.

BUILDING PORTSMOUTH SQUARE

The American flag was raised in Portsmouth Square, on July 9, 1846.
The small frontier town rapidly grew into a city after the discovery of
gold. Portsmouth Square, served as a cow pen, surrounded by tents and
adobe huts in 1848, and by brick and stone buildings, hotels, business
offices, shops, gambling places and restaurants by the late 1850's. At
that time hundreds of Chinese strategically chose to locate their laundries,
restaurants and shops close to the center of the city, Portsmouth Square
to cater to mining related needs. They were established on or within a
block of the square, and gradually branched out to Dupont (present-day
Grant) and Kearny Streets. The area referred to as "Little Canton," had
thirty-three retail stores, fifteen pharmacies/Chinese herbalists and
five restaurants. In 1853 the neighborhood was given the name "Chinatown"
by the press. The first Chinese hand laundry was started on the corner
of Washington Dupont Streets in 1851. By 1870 some 2,000 Chinese laundries
were in the trade growing to 7,500 in 1880. Merchants and peddlers provided
fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers. As San Francisco became a recreation
center, the Chinese seized opportunities to provide festive activities.
In addition an entire theater building was imported from China and erected
in Chinatown to house the Chinese theatrical troupe.

Chinatown's twelve blocks of crowded wooden and brick houses, businesses,
temples, family associations, rooming houses for the bachelor majority,
(in 1880 the ratio of men to women was 20 to 1) opium dens, gambling halls
was home to 22,000 people. The atmosphere of early Chinatown was bustling
and noisy with brightly colored lanterns, three-cornered yellow silk pennants
denoting restaurants, calligraphy on sign boards, flowing costumes, hair
in queues and the sound of Cantonese dialects. In this familiar neighborhood
the immigrants found the security and solidarity to survive the racial
and economic oppression of greater San Francisco.

EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE DESTROY CHINATOWN

On April 18, 1906, San Francisco was devastated by a huge earthquake.
As fires raged, Chinatown was leveled. It seemed that what the city and
country wanted for fifty years, nature had accomplished in forty-five
seconds. Ironically, because the immigration records and vital statistics
at City Hall had been destroyed, many Chinese were able to claim citizenship,
then send for their children and families in China. Legally, all children
of U.S. citizens were automatically citizens, regardless of their place
of birth. Thus began the influx of"paper sons and paper daughters" - instant
citizens - which helped balance the demographics of Chinatown's "bachelor
society." Finally, Chinatown had what it had been missing for so long
- children.

The city fathers had no intention of allowing Chinatown to be rebuilt
in its own neighborhood, on valuable land next to the Financial District.
While they were deciding where to relocate the Chinese, a wealthy businessman
named Look Tin Eli developed a plan to rebuild Chinatown to its original
location. He obtained a loan from Hong Kong and designed the new Chinatown
to be more emphatically "Oriental" to draw tourists. The old Italianate
buildings were replaced by Edwardian architecture embellished with theatrical
chinoiserie. Chinatown, like the phoenix, rose from the ashes with a new
facade, dreamed up by an American-born Chinese man, built by white architects,
looking like a stage-set China that does not exist.

ANGEL ISLAND:PORT OF ENTRY

Angel
Island, the immigration station on San Francisco Bay, opened in 1910 to
enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, is where two hundred fifty
thousand Chinese immigrants were processed. The average detention was
two weeks, the longest was twenty-two months. Conditions on Angel Island
were harsh, families were isolated, separated, and the interrogated. Detainees
were questioned in great detail about who they were and why they were
claiming the right to enter the United States. Those whose answers were
unacceptable to the officers were denied admission. To prepare for the
questions, immigrants often relied on coaching papers which contained
details on the background of individuals who could legally claim American
citizenship. Typically such papers were purchased as part of the package
of tickets and information about entering the United States.

Angel Island Station was closed in 1940 after a fire destroyed many
of the buildings. The Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943 and in 1962 most
of Angel Island was converted to state park.

WORLD WAR II's IMPACT ON CHINATOWN

As with the Great Quake and fire of 1906, the catastrophic events of
World War II and it's aftermath benefited the Chinese in America. The
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) became a vehicle of
opportunity for the Chinese Americans. China became an ally in the war
against Japan, and public sentiment in favor of America's Chinese allies
surged. For the first time, Chinese aliens entered the mainstream of American
society. Chinese Americans wore the same uniform as American soldiers,
and fought side by side with them under the American flag. Labor shortages
on the homefront opened jobs previously closed to them.

The most important declaration came on December 17, 1943, halfway through
the war, when President Roosevelt signed the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion
Act, ending more than sixty years of legalized racism and discrimination.
This did not guarantee instant acceptance by the dominant society. After
the repeal of the Exclusion Act and the enactment of the War Bride Act,
acculturation and assimilation began to take place. The once bachelor
society began to shift toward a new American Chinese community filled
with families and children. Finally Chinese immigrants were legally allowed
to become citizens and to own property.

CHINATOWN TODAY

Today's Chinatown is a unique neighborhood defined by its people, its
institutions and its history - a history of welcome, rejection and acceptance.
Chinese-style buildings and the narrow bustling streets give Chinatown
its character. Beyond the gilded storefronts you will find tenements crowded
with elderly people and new immigrants struggling with problems left by
years of exclusion and discrimination - unemployment, health problems
and substandard housing. Core Chinatown itself, limited by its capacity
to grow, no longer serves as the major residential area for the Chinese
of San Francisco. Many have moved out of crowded Chinatown to the Richmond
and Sunset districts.

In 1977, the Chinatown Resource Center and the Chinese Community Housing
Corporation launched a comprehensive improvement program striving to find
solutions for land use changes. Since 1895 the Chinese American Citizens
Alliance has fought against disenfranchisement of citizens of Chinese
ancestry and sponsored a number of community projects.

Today, San Francisco's Chinatown has developed cultural autonomy which
sustains many activities: dance, music groups, a children's orchestra,
artists, a Chinese Culture Center, and the Chinese Historical Society
of America. A result of the community's commitment to excellence in education
is its involvement in the legal debates of affirmative action vs. school
desegregation for Asian-American youth.

"Viewed within the context of the City of San Francisco, Chinatown is
one of many culturally distinct neighborhoods that together make up the
backbone of the City. Viewed within the context of America, Chinatown
is an American working class community that has been a partner in building
this nation with every other American working class community. Like all
other American neighborhoods, Chinatown has been developed by the will
and energies of immigrants."*